Zombie Attack Imminent? The Center for Disease Control is Ready
When the dead return to walk the earth, how will the Center for Disease Control respond? In a blog post, the agency explains:
If zombies did start roaming the streets, CDC would conduct an investigation much like any other disease outbreak. CDC would provide technical assistance to cities, states, or international partners dealing with a zombie infestation. This assistance might include consultation, lab testing and analysis, patient management and care, tracking of contacts, and infection control (including isolation and quarantine). It's likely that an investigation of this scenario would seek to accomplish several goals: determine the cause of the illness, the source of the infection/virus/toxin, learn how it is transmitted and how readily it is spread, how to break the cycle of transmission and thus prevent further cases, and how patients can best be treated.
(Via Gawker.)
In D.C., any zombie horde that attempted an invasion without the proper demonstration permits would probably be shut down by the Park Service.
Zombie politics are surprisingly complicated, but Reason's Tim Cavanaugh has been on on the beat for a while.
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Yeah, the CDC talks all tough now, but in a real zombie outbreak, they'd be hogtied by plaintiffs' attorneys suing them for unlawful discrimination and for violating the ADA.
When the hell is AMC going to give us new episodes of The Walking Dead? I've been realizing how much I enjoyed it recently, and I want more. Eight episodes is not enough for a season.
Either October 2011 or January 2012
That fucking long? GOD DAMN IT.
I share your pain.
I think it's ludicrously funny, in a Michael Chrichton way (see, Sphere).
I bet they have a standard form to help them plan for any possible outbreak, and it's structured like a Mad Lib.
In case of (adjective) (noun) attack, we will provide (synonym for "help") to local authorities...
So, I conclude that they also have plans for global vampire outbreaks and cataclysmic rabid woolly mammoth stampedes as well.
of course after the libertarians defund the CDC, any cure discovery, production, & distribution will be left to the free market. yea that'll work...pass the decayed flesh please
You're so right.
Just like if libertarians defunded the Ministry of Food nobody would have anything to eat.
Without the government controlling food production and distribution there would be nothing on the shelves at the grocery store. Without government directives telling farmers what to produce and how much to produce, they would produce nothing. Without government funded research there would be no new recipes. None. Nobody would try anything new.
Without government there is nothing.
Nothing at all.
Ever heard of Dr. Sach? He invented the cure for Polio, he worked in the PRIVATE SECTOR. Besides, I don't think the libertarians oppose the CDC when they focus on things like ebola. I oppose it when they start worrying about obesity and guns. That's none of your business, CDC!
I had so much more hope when I read your handle as L4D. Anyone who has played Left 4 Dead has at least an inkling of what will be needed in the zombie survival kit.
A flashlight. A pipebomb. A shotgun. Then you can laugh at those Resident Evil fools scrambling about looking for typewriter ribbons.
dont forget the bourbon
Also, a handgun and at least a million rounds of pistol ammo that you carry around effortlessly.
This would be very, very useful.
Fucking awesome.
yeah, have fun trying to crack into a braincage with a .22 WMR. 5.56 and bigger, or you might as well give the flesh-eating hordes a fork and knife.
This would work much better.
Ammo scarcity was a hallmark of RE and RE2, and they were greater games for it.
are you ready for Dead Island?
The concept sounds really interesting, and I have a lot of friends who love L4D - this would be right up their alley. I wonder what kind of FPS Square would put out? Brink was a bit of a blunder for Bethesda (fun but needs improvement), but I do appreciate seeing these RPG heavy publishers trying to push the FPS genre away from Halo, CoD and BF clones.
The shotgun in Left for Dead is too underpowered, IMHO.
To me "public health" crosses the line when it tries to protect people from their own, informed* decisions rather than from conditions that are created by other people's decisions.
*I'm all for many government efforts to better inform, just not their efforts to restrict.
The government has imposed rules that socialize the cost of medical care.
That means that any decision that someone makes that could result in their needing medical attention, from what they eat to who they fuck, is now the government's business because it could result in costs being imposed on everyone else.
Why do you think Single Payer is the holy grail?
It gives unlimited power over peoples' daily lives.
I think its a silly caricature that people who support Single Payer do so because they want total control over people's lives. It's easier to believe they do so because they think it will lead to more and/or better health coverage.
It may be "easier to believe" that the people advocating the same policies as you are doing so for altruistic reasons (I'm sure having a fig-leaf of justification helps some people sleep better) but it's not necessarily true. What's the Iron Law? Foreseeable consequences are NEVER unintended.
"What's the Iron Law? Foreseeable consequences are NEVER unintended."
That's a pretty dumb law.
Consider a swat team that storms a hijacked plane. They may foresee that hostages will be killed in the storming but it is nutty to say they intended them to be killed. Here's how you can know this: if they pull it off with zero hostages killed they will be greatly pleased, a strange thing for people who just failed in their intentended goal.
Consider a swat team that storms a hijacked plane. They may foresee that hostages will be killed in the storming but it is nutty to say they intended them to be killed.
You are confusing "intended" with "desired." Out in the real world of responsibility for actions, intended applies to your actions, not their outcomes. The Iron Law is meant to remind us that you are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of your actions.
I tend to think of Single Payer = Total Control as a slippery slope issue, and not a direct motivation issue.
It doesn't matter if Single Payer advocates are currently motivated by a desire to get more and better coverage or not. If Single Payer exists, the precedent of the tobacco litigation means that it will become a platform for the advocacy of total control. There is no way this will not happen, and it is no libertarian alarmism.
It's easier to believe they do so because they think it will lead to more and/or better health coverage.
Who cares what the intent is?
Road, paved, etc.
Some want single payer because they look at it as "Free stuff for me!". They're not the ones I'm talking about.
Others want single payer because it means that they can control peoples' lives for their own good.
Once we have single payer and the government pays all the health care bills, then those paying the bills have an incentive to get rid of preventable illness so as to lower payments.
Take obesity for example. Those administering the programs have an incentive to "cure" obesity because it result in public expenditures. Normally it wouldn't matter if someone chooses to be a fat slob, but now their choice is imposing costs on the public treasury.
So Single Payer is an opportunity to "cure" things like obesity and diabetes through controlling aspects of peoples' personal lives that would otherwise not be any of their business.
It's not malicious. It's the holy grail for social engineering.
I think its a silly caricature that people who support Single Payer do so because they want total control over people's lives.
I agree. Many of them are useful idiots for those who do, indeed, appreciate the unlimited leverage single payer gives to the nanny state.
I concur!
LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA, LA!
"I don't think the libertarians oppose the CDC when they focus on things like ebola."
I oppose the CDC in all instances because like all parts of government they use the threat of force to violate the property rights of the individual. Theft is theft.
How many ailments have been cured by the CDC? Does the CDC manufacture vaccines now or is that handled by already extant pharmaceutical companies? Does the CDC distribute medicines? You seem to be conflating the CDC (a division within the US Public Health Service) with the US Public Health Service itself and with the many pharmacological manufacturers and distributors ion the private sector.
Or, moronic statist troll is statist and moronic.
when you find-out the answers to ur ignorance then post it.
Well, the answers of course, are none, no, & no. The CDC is the research arm of the USPHS.
Once again, moronic statist troll is statist and moronic; now with double trolling fail feature.
no idiot, u asked the dumbass questions. i simply posted the libertarians would defund the CDC & leave it to the freez marktes...which is treu. libtard
Which is exactly why you are a moronic statist troll who is being statist and moronic. Now with triple the failure action.
no im a progressive militarist.
What the fuck does that even mean? All I can get out of it is left wing fascist.
So 00 is not just a moronic statist troll, it is a moronic statist troll that would enforce its worldview via murderous totalitarianism. Good to know.
Cure?
Who said anything about a cure?
We libertarians WANT the zombie apocalypse to come so we can construct our Somalia-esque paradise in the smoking and deserted ruins.
Amen, brother!
We are probably the most heavily armed of all political persuasions, so I figure we might do okay when society collapses.
I want to watch the zombies much on all the fat people.
Yes, with all that private gun ownership and unrestricted medical research Libertopia would surely do poorly in an outbreak.
The cure for zombies is extremely cheap and effective. It comes in capsule form. It can cure other things as well, such as your retarded statism.
I don't care how hungry I get, I will never eat epi's brain
The follow up joke being that there's not much sustenance there anyways.
...how to break the cycle of transmission and thus prevent further cases, and how patients can best be treated.
The same medicine is used for patient treatment and breaking the cycle of transmission. A high powered rifle with a scope administered from the roof of a mall. Duh.
Dude, Zombies are jsut cool like that!
http://www.internet-privacy.at.tc
How do you have a zombie survival kit without even some sort of weapon? I mean fuck, not even a golf club?
You don't want people to start thinking they can take care of zombie problems themselves. If you read the artice, you're supposed to have enought food and water to survive until the CDC and government-funded zombie removal teams arrive and herd you into camps.
Zombie infestation is a great thought experiment.
It's interesting how zombie etiology went from mostly mystical to biological in the past decades.
That's 'cause Zombies walk the planet (or at least SF)
http://www.zombietime.com/walk....._protests/
Well, it started out as chemical/pharmaceutical.
So it has pretty much run the gamut now.
Isn't it also true that the slow moving zombies were the norm in the days when more mystical explanations reigned? That seems odd. If they are mystical you can just say "whatever force animates them also magically gives them normal or great speed" it's the biological explanations that I would think would have to posit that zombies would have troubles that would inhibit normal speed.
Slow-moving zombies is redundant, as fast-moving zombies are a myth.
O Rly? What do you call 28 Days Later? The Walking Dead?
The Romero Rules have been broken, ProL, and even though I know you are an honorer of tradition: tradition gets changed.
here we go...Thin crust Deep dish, soda pop, cut uncut. soo let me see:
A thin crust eating fast zombie drinking a pop and who is not circumsized is like dividing by zero? I thought only Chuck Norris can do that.
The argument could be made that the creatures in 28 Days/Weeks Later aren't technically zombies, as they don't die before the transformation into mindless killing and eating machines.
Those are movies. You need help if you can no longer separate movies from reality.
You're talking condescendingly of separating movies from reality in an argument about hypothetical zombies?
It's vaguely possible you're missing the joke.
I only vaguely care for your vagaries.
I'm too indifferent to respond.
meh
Nephilium|5.19.11 @ 12:01PM|#
The argument could be made that the creatures in 28 Days/Weeks Later aren't technically zombies, as they don't die before the transformation into mindless killing and eating machines.
Pro Libertate|5.19.11 @ 12:03PM|#
Those are movies. You need help if you can no longer separate movies from reality.
Sean|5.19.11 @ 12:44PM|#
You're talking condescendingly of separating movies from reality in an argument about hypothetical zombies?
Threadwinner!
The slow-moving mystical zombie was partly inspired by the slow-moving pharmacological zombie, though.
The staggering, sluggish walk was a feature of the fact that voodoo zombies were stoned out of their minds.
That walk got transferred to Romero's mystical zombies intact.
The switch to biology sped zombies up because of the analogy of rabid animals. Rabid dog = runs faster than doped-up stoner.
Are Romero's zombies mystical? While never elaborated, Night mentions a crashed satellite and radiation release.
In Romero land everyone who dies whether it is zombie-related or not becomes undead. Because "hell is full" or something like that. Mystical? I think so.
Nah, the "hell is full" thing is just a line a preacher says, it isn't the "reason". It's radiation from a satellite that starts in the northeast, and then as the radiation spreads around the globe, it causes all the dead to rise.
Actual voodoo zombies often had brain damage due to hypoxy after being buried alive. That accounts for the slow shuffling movements and trance-like state of consciousness. More often than not the victims of zombie powder were never revived after being dug up from their grave.
And for clarification, for anybody who doesn't already know this, the voodoo zombies, although touted as mystical creatures, were actually victims of poisoning with tetrodotoxin.
Many primitive cultures have mystical beliefs about all sorts of biological phenomenon. So it makes sense that a fictional thing would evolve in this way. People just won't be impressed by some magical bullshit without an explanation these days.
Two taps to head and the zombie is dead. Unless of course if you live in DC, where it's almost impossible to legally own a handgun.
Osama was a zombie?
no he was hawaiian. big diff
Have you BEEN to Hawaii?
Slowest. Waiters. Ever.
They might as well be zombies.
I declare Platypus the winner
It's called "being on Hawaiian time". What's your fucking hurry? You're on vacation.
Now, if you want to experience really laid-back slow service, go to Molokai. No fast food at all on the island, last time I was there.
*deadpan sigh*
that was the joke.
ha - joke that needs 'splainin' cant be **DA WINNER** babieeee
It's easier to score a headshot on a moving target with the longer sight radius of a long arm.
And it usually packs a bigger punch. If nothing else, the longer barrel usually gives the powder more burn time, which increases velocity and hence energy. They can also handle larger, more powerful cartridges with less discomfort to the shooter.
OTOH, pistols are easier to carry and allow you to have one hand free if necessary. So really, a person would do well to have both in the event of a zombie uprising.
Agree 100%. On having both. In addition to enhancing tactical flexibility, it adds redundancy to your armament.
Even pistol cartridges can show significant gains from a longer barrel. If I remember correctly 9mm carbines with 16" barrels tend to have muzzle velocities around 1450-1500, which certainly adds a good deal of energy to a 115 grain bullet.
I've seen a .44 rifle that looked like a winchester .30-.30. It looked pretty fucking cool.
Troy: good chance it was a Marlin Model 1894, which is based on the Winchester Model 1894 and is chambered in .357 magnum or .44 magnum.
I've got a Marlin 1894 in .357. With the proper loads it'll do anything that needs doing within 100 yards. From a rifle barrel with the proper loads (eg a 180 or 200gr bullet), .357 approached .30-30 type energy.
It wouldn't be my first choice for a zombie apocalypse (I think an AR15 in 5.56 is the best option) but it's far from the worst, especially with a .357 revolver to back it up. It's a great choice for a combo in places that laws restrict your choices.
For mid to longer range anti-zombie work you want a short barreled AR equipped with a can and chambered for 300 Whisper/300 AAC Blackout. Second choice would be a Ruger 77/44 with integral suppressor. While it might be tempting to engage at longer ranges with a .22-250 or .25-06, or one of the flatter-shooting .30 caliber rounds, the risk of giving away one's position to a concealed zombie nearby is too great.
The benefit of the Whisper/Blackout platform is that it combines accuracy and good terminal ballistics at range while still functioning reliably in full auto at CQB.
For mid to longer range anti-zombie work you want a short barreled AR equipped with a can and chambered for 300 Whisper/300 AAC Blackout.
Nope. Forget ballistic minutiae. What you want in a zombie apocalypse isn't boutique ammo, its plentiful ammo. Stick with the military issue stuff - .223, .308, 9mm, .45.
You have a point from the standpoint of perimeter defense of an established position (where you would want to combine sharpshooting, light to heavy machineguns, and mortars/grenade launchers), but if you're getting yourself into situations where you need to carry more than 200-300 rounds of small arms ammo for self defense, you're surrounded by way too many zombies to make much more than a symbolic last stand. A quiet, accurate, hard hitting round is a must for scouting the zombie wasteland. The Whisper/Blackout option combines that with plenty of firepower for the hopefully rare CQB encounter.
You also want a hi-cap .40 like a Para-Ordnance P16-40 or Glock 35 for fighting small crowds of zombies at close range if need be.
Your biggest problem in any kind of shit-hit-the-fan scenario is going to be resupply. If you depend on a fairly rare cartridge, you're going to HAVE to be able to manufacture the brass for it. Otherwise, the brass you have is going to run out very quickly - you get maybe 4 or so reloads per cartridge, and you're not going to always be able to police your brass.
If you use a common military cartridge, OTOH, you will be able to find lots of it - gun stores, national guard armories, military compounds and cop shops will all have a plentiful amount of these cartridges on hand - which makes scrounging a lot easier.
Better to stick with 5.56x45, 7.62x51, and 9mm.
You can also suppress and download any of these cartridges to sub-sonic if needed.
Yes, but 300 Whisper/Blackout brass is easily manufactured from spent 5.56x45 casings.
My point is that it's an ideal PDW and very good at medium range accuracy while being nearly impossible to locate the shooter. Would you set up a perimeter defense based entirely on that cartridge? Of course not. Is it an excellent choice for a scout? Yes.
One of the reasons the versatility of the AR series weapons is a big deal: you can start off with an "ideal" solution and then later, as supplies run short, switch to a different upper...
If you spot Zack a couple hundred yards out, you should avoid, not engage. I'd prefer my primary weapon be something with ammo I can scavenge, and have a suppressed sidearm for the close-up encounters.
Even with a can and subsonic ammo, .300BLK is still about 125-130db. That's enough to not damage your hearing with brief exposure, but more than enough to locate your position.
See post below.
.22lr, you can shoot and shoot and shoot. Also you can be quiet, light, and hide.
If you spot Zack a couple hundred yards out, you should avoid, not engage.
Regardless, the best advice is to carry what you are comfortable with. If you can't make the shot 100% of the time then it isn't worth the effort of carrying.
It's a lot quieter than that. How much I don't know exactly, but I've had people not even realize I was shooting from less than 20 yards away, no lie.
Also, the SPLs reported by suppressor manufacturers are reported at a distance of 1m from the muzzle. Inverse square attenuation makes it very hard to hear even from a few dozen yards away.
Also, the SPLs reported by suppressor manufacturers are reported at a distance of 1m from the muzzle. Inverse square attenuation makes it very hard to hear even from a few dozen yards away.
A pistol/carbine combo that is popular out west is the .357 magnum (or .44 magnum) revolver paired with a lever action chambered in the same caliber. Some of the more powerful .357 loads can come close to matching the energy range of a .30-30, and it lets you carry redundant ammunition.
I have .22lr pistol/carbine combo. So my max effective range with the pistol(ruger 22/45) is only 25yards and 75yards with the carbine (henry lever). I expect to avoid armed conflicts with the living, kill varmints, and only shoot zack when defending/scouting. The perks of being able to carry 5000 rounds with a quiet report outweigh the cons of lack of range and penetration.
But a .357 or .44 carbine/pistol combo would be sweet. It's just that I can't stockpile or carry enough ammo to last years. Or shoot couple hundred rounds everytime I go to the range.
Gobi Campaign Scout Rifle.
Man that thing is SWEET.
That and the Sheriff's Duster + 1st Recon Beret were the only things I took into "Honest Hearts" this morning.
I hope you have the Better Criticals perk also; you can basically one shot anything on Normal with that set up.
Yup and I have the two-handed weapon perk.
I miss the Chinese Stealth Armor from 3
Look harder; you'll find it at Hoover Dam.
excellent, I'll have a new mission when I fire it up after LA Noire
I haven't seen the Sheriff's Duster--just the Bounty Hunter Duster.
Sheriff of Primm has it. He will leave it behind if you let the NCR take over.
Fuck NCR...I went Wild Card and never loked back.
Does Primm Slim have it if you make him the Sheriff?
I've grown accustomed to the YCS/186 Gauss rifle. Boom--dead.
Tell Lord Urkobold that New Vegas allows you to make your own tequila. I. Sure this will please him.
I've noted the ability to make other liquors, but where's the agave?
Wait a second. I have picked up agave. Nevada agave something.
Excellent.
Nevada and Ytah desert, but you don't get the recipe without the Honest Hearts DLC.
Please excuse my typing. Circumstances have reduced me to using my phone.
Please excuse my typing. Circumstances have reduced me to using my phone.
I've beaten the game and am now playing as an evil dude (though the silly game had me up to "good" because I slaughtered some fiends), but I haven't gotten any DLCs.
If a zombie horde invaded DC?
Didn't you see the Reason vids on the One Nation rally? I think we're beyond the hypothetical here...
Zombie Attack Imminent? The Center for Disease Control is Ready
The whole point of the satire is for you to get ready for a disaster but interesting scenario, will libertarians be looking for the government to protect them?
Serious answer from a libertarian on the Gulf Coast? Fuck no. Do everything you possibly can to be prepared on your own and don't evacuate unless absolutely necessary.
Which reminds me, it's getting time to check and repack the hurricane box and fill all the gas cans.
Indeed. Mother nature has been a bitch lately.
And whatever you do, don't go to the shelters (spoken as someone who moved to Houston 2 months before Katrina hit New Orleans).
I've got 5 dogs that go where we go. Ain't no shelter in the state that'll take us. So we either SIP or bug way the hell out to relatives.
But I live far enough north and am high enough in the local geography that I don't worry about flooding. Wind damage and power outages are my primary concerns.
I'm not in any flood plains or evacuation zones, and I'm close enough to the medical center that I think I piggyback off their electrical grid. I was one of the lucky few in Houston that made it through Ike without losing power.
No, we won't. Eveyone else will and already does. Examples. 10% of California homeowners have earthquake insurance. Flood insurance levels are no higher now on the gulf coast than before Katrina. In Alabama, FEMA is putting tornado victims in free FEMA trailers, even if they had homeowner insurance that covers additional living costs. Our national anthem should be changed from the Star Spangled Banner to Grampa Simpson's quote "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme"
The government has imposed rules that socialize the cost of medical care.
That means that any decision that someone makes that could result in their needing medical attention, from what they eat to who they fuck, is now the government's business because it could result in costs being imposed on everyone else.
Just wait 'til the government starts harvesting organs, for the "greater good".
"Technically, since we are providing you with free unlimited health care, you have a debt to society; now, you may not want us to remove your son's heart and transplant it, but he should have known better than to ride a motorcycle. And, we'll want those kidneys, too; was he a drinker, because there's always a market need for livers in good working order."
What makes you think they'll wait until you're dead?
I foresee a steep rise in surgical "incidents."
Interesting question of property rights in apocalyptic scenarios. How long from the time when society collapses until any seemingly unoccupied building and its contents become fair game?
About 5 minutes.
Property rights don't exist due to government, we have ceded our rights to defend our property to the government. Property rights exist before and after government, but the ability to protect them falls totally on you, as your government proxies have collapsed.
One thing I like about Earth Abides--not much government.
Wilson Tucker wrote a modified Last Man novel called The Loug, Loud Silence that was a more savage take on the concept. Most of Tucker's work is interesting, if not flat out great.
^Cheery thought for the day.^
Have a good one!
""Interesting question of property rights in apocalyptic scenarios. ""
Post apocalyptic will be might equals right. You will have the right to nothing that you can not defend.
Our government would discriminate against the living challenged? I'm surprised they wouldn't set up progrmas to ensure that they recieve fair and equitable treatment in hiring, affordable housing, education. . .
This was triggered by a CDC employee accidently finding some papers about the real purpose of the H.A.A.R.P. project. You will all be zombies on May 21.
FZS:
Federal Zombie Subsidies.
Shit. I bet they're Union zombies.
There's no stopping them.
http://www.cracked.com/article.....ickly.html
^Worth reading.
"Remember that time a dog caught rabies, and a few weeks later every dog in the world had it except for a few huddled in a basement with a shotgun?" Priceless.
"MNG|5.19.11 @ 11:00AM|#
I think its a silly caricature that people who support Single Payer do so because they want total control over people's lives. It's easier to believe they do so because they think it will lead to more and/or better health coverage."
Is there anything about forcing the entire population go through a single entity to purchase health that does NOT suggest a desire for total control?
Fine, the ones who don't want total control can be broken down to the greedy (think single payer means they get free care), the lazy (cannot be bothered to be educated consumers in the healthcare market), and the economically illiterate (think that catering to every demand is neither going to raise costs nor reduce quality). In other words, most supporters of "single payer" are a motley assortment of the totalitarian's traditional ally, the useful idiot.